Jagex Announces RS4, a New RuneScape MMO Built in Unreal Engine

At RuneFest 2026, Jagex revealed RS4, a brand new MMORPG set in Gielinor. Still without a release date, the project won't replace RuneScape, Old School or Dragonwilds.

Jagex picked RuneFest 2026 to drop the bomb it had been sitting on: a fourth MMORPG inside the RuneScape universe, currently going by the working title RS4. The name is just a placeholder, the studio was upfront that it might change before launch, but it sums up the pitch well: after RuneScape, RuneScape 2, RuneScape 3 and Old School, this is officially the fourth generation of the saga, built from scratch in Unreal Engine.

The game is set in Gielinor, starting in the Ashenfall continent, the same setting as RuneScape: Dragonwilds, with a story that picks up after the fall of Dragon Queen Kuldra. Jagex says it wants to combine the tech lessons learned from Dragonwilds with the community-driven development that has shaped RuneScape and Old School for 25 years, but this time bringing players into the process much earlier, with testing and feedback happening while the game is still being built.

Worth underlining what Jagex is explicitly not doing here: RS4 isn't a successor meant to retire anything. RuneScape, Old School RuneScape and Dragonwilds keep their own teams, their own roadmaps and continued investment. In the studio's own words, the goal is to make the Gielinor universe bigger, not to replace what already exists.

There's no word yet on platforms, account systems, subscriptions, combat or progression, and Jagex itself admits the project is still "a few years away" from release. So no need to panic about a launch date just yet.

For anyone currently playing RuneScape or Old School, this changes absolutely nothing in the short term, and that's exactly why the reveal is happening this early: Jagex knows it's a multi year build and chose to open the kimono well ahead of time, a transparency bet that can either build long term trust with the fanbase or cool off if the hype fades before there's an actual game to show.

The timing also stands out because it shows Jagex trying to dodge the classic trap every old MMO eventually hits: either you modernize the engine and risk losing what made the game feel like itself, or you stay stuck on 25 year old tech. Moving to Unreal Engine, the same path taken with Dragonwilds, looks like the company's bet to keep the universe alive without shutting the door on the games already running.